In films, journalists are always being taken off stories because they have got personally involved, and our sympathies are always with the hacks because emotion is everything in drama. In real life, however, I have rarely watched any documentary that would not have been improved by less, rather than more, passion. As Lou Grant told the firebrand Joe Rossi in the first episode of the newspaper series Lou Grant: “You really hate guys. I can tell. I shouldn't be able to tell.”

Ken Hames, a motivational speaker and TV presenter, proved Grant so right last night in an emotional documentary on homelessness among war veterans. Ex-Forces and Homeless (BBC One) was fatally torpedoed by Hames's own experiences in the Royal Marines and the Special Forces which, though undoubtedly distressing, have not, you will have already gathered, left him homeless.

“I am sorry to keep interrupting your story,” he apologised to Dave MacLammont, a 62-year-old former Marine, although the real apology was owed to viewers interested in the story of a Falklands veteran who now roams Britain on a horse. “Like me,” said Hames, “he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when he came back from the Falklands. Unlike me, he seems to have found a way of dealing with it.” Personally, I would have thought the TV presenter was living the more functional life.

Hames teared up during interviews with a machinegunner whom he met sleeping under Holborn Viaduct in London, a frigate gunner turned alcoholic, and a Glaswegian ex-Para who was, he reckoned, blocking out his PTSD with “libations” of cider. But what really interested Hames was his own PTSD and how it related to his childhood under an authoritarian dad. There were the makings of an insightful documentary about PTSD here, but someone else needs to tackle the shameful issue of what happens to our servicemen when they return from battle. I suggest a journalist be given the gig.

Not, mind you, that employing Jacques Peretti for Heather Mills: What Really Happened paid many dividends for Channel 4. Peretti interviewed Denise Hewitt (the former prostitute who frequently pops up to claim Mills was a colleague), the ghost writer of Mills's memoirs, a tabloid columnist and another hack who followed Paul McCartney's career. In terms of new stuff, this left him with the sister of Mills's first husband, who had never liked her, a school friend who said their swimming instructor wasn't as bad a paedo as Mills made out, and, roll of drums, her father. Sadly Mark Mills, who had suffered a stroke, could barely speak a coherent sentence. He got as far as denying he had abused Heather and saying his daughter was ambitious. You don't say, Sherlock. The best bit was the video of her first wedding. In his speech, her lovestruck groom, a dishwasher salesman called Alfie, tried rolling “My wife and I, I and my wife” round his mouth even as Heather looked out over the wedding breakfast as if for fresh meat.

BBC Three, I sometimes think, has it in for its own audience, repeatedly sending representatives from it to sleep homeless, live among herbivorous tribesmen or watch their bacon sarnies being prepared in the slaughterhouse. Yet Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, in which six young fashion victims were sent to work in the Delhi rag trade, made for surprisingly revealing and moving TV. The bubble of complacent affluence in which we all live - not just hip young BBC Three viewers - was mercilessly pierced.

It was hard to tell what offended Amrita, a second-generation Asian, most: the hard work, the fact that she turned out to be rotten at sewing or the price of roll-on deodorant (roughly a day's wage). “Yeah, man, factory work is so not my thing,” she concluded, as if it were anybody's. My favourite brat, however, was an adman called Richard, who believed anyone could work their way out of poverty and turned against India (“a f***ing s***hole”) big time. A preview of next week's episode had him philosophise: “I don't think it is that bad for them. I think it is f***ing horrific for us.” I can't wait to see how this line of reasoning stands up on Judgment Day, or indeed by the end of the series.

Out of the Box

Everything's a “journey” these days. It is the default conceit for documentaries, including the three reviewed above, and involves plenty of car travel and Damascene enlightenment. Now it is spreading to quiz shows. Challenge TV describes Chris Tarrant's latest, It's Not What You Know, as following “the journey of a pair of contestants as they attempt to win big money”.

Thanks for the response to my request for TV-themed pizzas, as inspired by Domino's Britain's Got Talent pizza. Steve Isaacs designed a nicely in-period Heartbeat pizza: fresh minced beef, butternut squash and beetroot pieces topped with a rich onion gravy sauce. M.M. Wilmot thought I was just after disgusting ones and came up with a topping that included barbecue sauce, anchovies and tandoori chicken. The Britain's Got Diarrhoea pizza, perhaps. But the champagne goes to Anthony Abrahamssu for a splendidly authentic Foyle's War concoction of snoek, pilchards and tomato ketchup. Well done, sir!

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